Some policemen attached to Maroko
police station, Lagos State, have been accused of killing a 24-year old man,
Aondona Tavershima and buried him in a shallow grave at Lekki beach.
Five of the suspected policemen
are now currently in police detention. The victim, a motorcycle operator, was
alleged to have refused to stop when he was accosted by the policemen who were
said to be on patrol at about 11am on the fateful day.
“On realizing that he was dead,
the policemen picked his corpse and put it behind their patrol vehicle, a
Toyota Hilux Van, and covered it with tyres. They drove to the beach and buried
him. We were the ones who alerted the family that their brother had been killed
and buried,” the eyewitness disclosed.
Narrating the incident to Sunday
Sun on phone, Aondona’s elder sister, Linda, said she got to know about the
incident on Thursday, November 11, 2014. “I knew that he left for Lekki with
his friend and when he did not come back, I assumed that he had gone to spend
time with his friends. When I was told that my brother was killed, my people
visited the scene and saw the grave. We later discovered that the policemen were
from Maroko police station and we went to lodge a complaint. They promised to
invite SCID Panti to exhume the body, as it was not their job. At night, they
came and exhumed the body and kept it in a mortuary. The DPO later called me
and requested that they would pay us N10 million to end the matter. They said
we should go home and think about it and get back to them,” Linda alleged.
Similarly, an in-law to the
deceased, Dominic David, claimed that he was told that policemen were trying to
arrest Aondona and he refused to stop. “They opened fire on him and shot him.
And even when he fell down, they
still continued to shoot.
Initially, they wanted to abandon
the corpse, but the owner of the house near where he was killed insisted that
they must carry the corpse away.”
“They took his body to Lekki beach
and buried him in a grave and covered the burial site with leaves and old
carton. Unfortunately, some of the people who witnessed the crime knew us very
well and alerted us. They promised that Panti was going to investigate the
matter but up till date, they have not done anything about it.”
The lawyer representing the
family, Barrister Mindia Chibok, said the family intends to legally seek
redress on the injustice meted out to the victim. We expect that by now the
matter should have been transferred to an appropriate authority and not the
same police station where the crime was committed. We hope that the police
authority will order a thorough investigation and ensure that the suspects,
including those who are currently at large be arrested and made to face the
wrath of the law.
I gathered that six of the
suspects are currently at large while five others are in police custody.
Confirming the incident, Lagos
Police command spokesman, DSP Kenneth Nwosu, said that as soon as the
Commissioner of Police for Lagos State got wind of the incident, he ordered an
immediate arrest of the suspected policemen who were alleged to have
participated in the killing.
“Five policemen are currently
being detained, while State Criminal Investigation Department, Panti, has since
commenced an investigation. If found guilty, the officers will be made to face
the wrath of the law,” Nwosu said.
Source: The Sun
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